GCSE is a criterion-referenced exam; that is, grade performance is defined in advance (at A, C & G) by government. Candidates who demonstrate that performance have to be awarded the appropriate grade. With that clarity, and schools under ferocious pressure to improve league table positions, it is at all surprising that higher grades are awarded over time.
Education correspondents would do better to explain this, rather than repeating ministerial smears.

That doesn't change the truth of the article or arguably the need to change the system to the one where a percentage of pupils is awarded top marks etc. Ideally the percentages would be kept separate between govt and private schools.

"The truth" of the article is full of unproven and tired old assumptions (see for example K.P.Kavafy below), IGCSE is "harder" etc.
Awarding fixed percentages to each grade - e.g. top 5% A*, next 10% A etc. - falls immediately at the different entries for different subjects. The entry for Latin, for example, is skewed towards more able students; for Business Studies the reverse is the case. Criterion-referencing is fairer.
Incidentally, the number of First Class degrees awarded by British Universities has tripled in the last 25 years. Falling standards? Of course not!

It is just a matter of how it is done. The fixed percentages could for example be done by subject rather than overall. Harder subjects may therefore become harder to get good grades in but the reaction would be proportionate eg Latin would be seen as a better subject and lower grades in Latin may become more acceptable as entry requirements. The market would adjust. Unfortunately right now it cant adjust. Top grades are awarded too frequently for these exams to actually be used as a differentiator. This sullies the reputation of the exam and encourages FE institutes and employers to use their own exams. This defeats the point of the exam.

The elephant in the room is selection. Britain in the 50's and 60's selected for academic ability and did a lousy job of catering for the 11 plus failures. Germany still selects for academic ability and does a better job of vocational education for the less academic - but its system is beginning to strain too.

Going back to these simplistic models of educational selection is wrong. They applied to a different time. Today's world is so complex that specialization is needed. Dividing children into "academic" and "non academic" is far too crude. There are a range of intelligences and aptitudes which can be measured and used to guide a child into fields where he or she will excel.

A truly effective education system would have all schools being selective, but selecting on different aptitudes and excelling in developing, stretching and nurturing those aptitudes. The selection exam (probably at 13 when aptitudes are pretty well formed) would be one with no failures, with all children getting help from it in choosing the school which will best develop them into successful adults.

I disagree. Trying to teach academic to nonacademic students is a waste of time. I didn't agree with Charles Murray fifteen years ago when he wrote the Bell Curve, but now I do. In our flat world where the best from Asia compete with out best, we need to do all we can to help the top quarter. Plus computers make the top academic people even stronger while those not academic play video games. It is what it is! Plus our children just vegetate in school when they could be learning life skills. For most, Liberal Arts means Little Accomplished.

This is a poorly-researched article. The OECD itself has warned against comparing the 2000 PISA figures with later years due to sampling problems. There's no way that they deserve their own chart at the top of the article, as if the case is thereby made.